St. Viator's booming bats provide plenty of fireworks

The lightning detectors sounded twice at Palatine on Tuesday.

But while there was no visible lightning in the sky, St. Viator provided plenty of sparks on the baseball diamond.

The Lions used both delays to help ignite offensive fireworks en route to a 14-1 victory over the Pirates in five innings.

"I actually thought the first delay helped us," said Lions coach Mike Manno. "Things didn't look like they were going to go our way early."

The Pirates (6-4) engineered some quick momentum when Nick Orlando, Matt Saltess and Nolan Gavin singled to load the bases in the bottom of the first inning. Orlando scored on Zach Serna's sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.

The Pirates built on that momentum in the top of the second. St. Viator had runners on first and second with one out, but pitcher Patrick Seeberger induced a groundball to Serna at third, and he stepped on the bag and fired to first for an inning-ending double play.

Then, despite the sun shining amid a few scattered raindrops, the lightening detector sounded and the teams cleared the field for nearly 30 minutes.

When everyone returned, St. Viator seized control.

The Lions (10-2) scored three times in the the third to get things going. Matt Prazuch reached on a fielder's choice with two outs. Pinch runner Matt O'Neill moved to second on a hit batter and scored all the way from second on a wild pitch. Two batters later, Joe McCollum, who was inserted into the lineup Tuesday, delivered a 2-run single to give the Lions a 3-1 lead.

"I felt that I have been working pretty good in the cages," said McCollum, who finished the day 2-for-4 with 4 RBI. "I have been working on my approach a lot. I thought I might get an opportunity today and I was happy to be able to contribute."

The Lions batted around in the fourth inning, scoring 5 runs on just 2 hits by taking advantage of 2 errors. The big blow came from Matt Darling's 2-run double.

"It was a good day today," said Darling, who was 2-for-4 with 3 RBI, scored 3 runs and stole 3 bases. "When we went into the building during the first delay we were kind of bummed out. When we came back out, we knew we had to concentrate."

The Lions showed that concentration when the game was delayed for a second time in the fourth inning. After Lions pitcher George Burny stopped the Pirates in the bottom of the fourth, Viator scored six times in the top of the fifth, collecting 6 hits.

"It felt good out there for me today," said Burny, who allowed 5 hits while striking out thre to improve to 2-1 on the year. "The delay bothered me a little bit, but I was able to settle down.

Robbie Jaydos, who had been nursing a sore hamstring early in the season, showed that he was fully healed with a lead-off triple in the fifth. He had doubled earlier, and he scored 2 runs.

"I am definitely getting back into it," said Jaydos, who caught his first game of the season. "It is fully healed now and I am 100 percent."

Coach Paul Belo said the Pirates' 6 errors were uncharacteristic.

"That is not how we play the game here," Belo said. "Baseball is funny that way. We take great pride defensively. If just did not show what we work tremendously hard at."

Manno, whose Lions are in the midst of six games in six days, is pleased so far this season.

"We have done that all year," Manno said. "We have done a great job of capitalizing on people's mistakes."

The Lions' Ben Dickey added 2 hits, and Andrew Bohlmann had 2 hits for the Pirates.